Pupils' right to one-to-one catch-up tuition ended

[telsa]

Oh great. First they come for the students......and then the little ones.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11718968

Many people with children who do not have any particular issues with their learning never gain any sort of understand of what can cause a child to need extra help in school. This thread shows not only their lack of understanding, but also their utter lack of compassion and naivety regarding the education system.

It saddens me, but doesn't surprise me.

I can see what you mean, ClenchedBottom, but I think that what some people are trying to express (maybe badly) is that you could make a case for EVERY child benefiting from 1:1 tuition, and the realities of how its been delivered, have understandably hacked some people off.

As a teacher, I've seen this delivered in various ways. Some schools target C/D borderline pupils. That's all about league tables. Why is a C/D borderline pupils any more or less deserving than an A/B or B/C borderline one?

Some of the pupils I've known receive it, have fallen behind totally through their own lack of effort. They've pissed about in lessons, wasting other people's time, and then had the advantage of 1:1 tuition - while other hard working pupils haven't.

Now, of course you could argue that that pupil may have crap home life which contributes to the pissing about. But what about another pupil with an equally crap home life who chooses NOT to piss about and jeapardise others' education?

You can go round in ever decreasing circles with this. Ultimately, I think the unfortunate side effect of 1:1 tuition is that it's fostered this sense of entitlement that's prevalent in society right now. Parents don't see it as their responsibility to provide the 'add ons' to the school experience. They see everything as something which should be funded by that great, bottomless public purse (ie other people)

I've seen the benefits of 1:1 tuition in some cases, but ultimately, I think it's an unfair system, because every single child could benefit from it, yet only some get it, based on quite arbitrary measures.

Two years ago the French primary school week was reduced from 26 hours to 24 hours for full class teaching; teachers, however, did not have their teaching week reduced and are, instead, required to use the two hours that have been freed up to give individual or small group tuition to pupils who require extra help on a needs basis. This could mean regular after school classes, or a couple of 20 minute sessions in lunch hour. I like this.

Just to refer back to the OP specifically: "First they come for the students......and then the little ones."
It's worth pointing out that this funding for 1:1 tuition was due to expire long before the coalition came to power. Labour had already planned to "axe it" too.

Yes, that's true clam - but as per usual with this type of thread, why stick to the facts when you can have a grossly inaccurate, sensationalist Daily Mail style title instead!!

well it's just as outrageous whoever decides to cut help for children

Errr the title was lifted directly from the BBC news website headline - not usually a hotbed of Daily-Mailism.

And if you think my OP is emotive, I am trying to put it in perspective. There are so many cuts being made, lots of little snips here and there - in the name of cutting deficit/debt - but it is going to hit the poorest disproportionately and people going on about 'little shits' and the like are just contributing to that atmosphere of blaming the poor for poverty. It's complete crap. And my line is echoing the Pastor Niemoller line - First they came for the Jews and I said nothing etc etc - because chances are YOU - all you shitty small minded selfish people who rub your hands in glee at other's misfortune, will get it in the neck too, get your local service slashed or your mum's meals on wheels or whatever - and someone will say you are an unworthy sponger - so stop being so smug, unless you happen to run a bank or something.

Thanks for your supportive messages ladies... I'm still so upset about it... actually I'm still fuming, so I'll probably disappear after this.
I actually see things completely differently to you Violethill. Perhaps you are talking secondary, but I find it so hard to believe people would judge primary age children for pissing about...we are talking Under 11's here yes?.. and no I don't agree with the sense of entitlement either..
you know, maybe I just live in too middeclass an area, but when I talk to other parents I just see relief that it's not them in my situation.
Relief that their child is doing ok, and not doing extra everything!
Relief that its not the teacher looking for them in the playground at the end of the day.
That's not to say I don't agree with every child could benefit from extra 121, of course they could.
My eldest son is G&T and would love extra everything,.. but I can support him.
It doesn't require the specialist training that teachers can give my SN son.
Well I know now.... I better not mention all ds2's extra help in the playground some parents might begrudge it

Quite ingles.

Sad really.

I had better tell me DS that he really doesn't deserve his 1to1 because MN says so.

No it isn't about pupils who have shite parents or are little shits themselves.

My DD had a few hours of state-funded tuition last year. Nothing to do with behavioural problems, neglect, poverty or a negative attitude towards education.

DH and I went to University decades ago when it was a bit tricky for working class people to get in unless they worked incredibly hard.There are tens of thousands of books in our house. I worked for fifteen years as a primary school teacher.

My daughter, unfortunately, was hospitalised for weeks at a time due to life-threatening episodes throughout her early school years. I have tried and tried to help fill in the missing building blocks and have had a lot of success wrt her reading, spelling and writing.

She still had some key mathematical concepts missing last year and the tutoring did help to fill in the gaps.

Perhaps I could have done more to assist her myself but that would only have been possible if I had put her younger autistic brother into local authority care. That would have worked out rather more expensive than ten hours tuition after school though.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the extra help was great but I don't believe it was a "right" at all. I was very grateful for it on behalf of DD.

And another thing:

The really disadvantaged children in the schools I have worked in wouldn't ever be given permission to take up after-school tutoring because they nearly always have several younger siblings to see safely home, feed and put to bed

So the parents aren't shite but they have delegated the role of feeding and putting to bed their primary aged children's younger siblings, sorry that sounds pretty shite to me.

I was a 121 tutor. I guessed it would go as it was an easy target. FWIW I tutored 4 students and 3 of them were very middle class. They did not have disfunctional homes or crap parents, they had just hit a slump and needed some help so they could make progress. The 4th child was very working class but again, supportive family and a pleasure to work with.

It is shite - of course it is. But these are not the parents and children who have been benefiting from the extra tuition.

What's so hard to understand about that?

Thank you mnistooaddictive. Precisely!

This isn't about axing 1:1 tuition though is it. Its giving headteachers more control and autonomy over their resources, if they think that 1:1 tuition would be beneficial for some of their pupils then they can still spend money on it but they are not forced to if they think that something else would be more beneficial.

Oh come on now huddspur, I'm all for headteachers allocating their resources as they feel, but there is something to be said about ring-fencing certain amounts for supporting children who have special needs etc.

When there's such overwhelming pressure to make cuts everywhere, surely you don't buy the line that this is about 'giving headteachers control & autonomy'?! It's about making cuts, simple as that, to things that sadly are seen by the government as expendable.

shameful, if you ask me. If it were just the 1-to-1 tuition being cut I would buy the argument against it; but it's all sorts of things being cut, most of them in the same direction, those who are most disadvantaged getting most affected.

Why I trust headteachers to allocate resources far better than DoE bureaucrats in Whitehall or LEA offcials and their "ringfencing"

Yes, but if the HT figured that repaving the playground would benefit the whole school, then the HT will spend the money on that, and stuff the dc with SN that don't qualify for a statement and sit quietly in a corner of the classroom NOT LEARNING. Just like my DD's primary HT. He did it because he could and his decision was to 'benefit all the dc in the school' not those with SN that NEED the extra help.

He didn't give two hoots that DD left the school unable to read past a 6yo level at nearly 12yo. The fact that WITH ths help at secondary and made 4 yrs worth of progress is irrelavent to him, it didn't come out of money that he could choose to tart the school up with to attract a more MC intake, it came from the secondary school's budget.

Huddspur, fair enough that 'bureaucrats' or 'officials' might not have as clear a picture of a particular school's needs as a headteacher might. But surely adequate support for SN should be a top priority for any HT (and thus worthy of ring-fencing)? I really fail to understand where else the money could be better spent, rather than on giving more time & resources to children who have extra needs?

If the money for extra help for DD had been ringfenced, the HT would have been unable to do that, and DD may well have left primary school at the lower end of average with her literacy and numeracy skills, and been better placed to get a decent grade at GCSE, instead of spending the first 2-3 YEARS of secondary school catching up on things that she should have had the extra support to catch up with while still at primary.

DD will never get a GCSE in MFL, as the secondary have had to drop MFL to timetable the catch-up help she needs to get even a C-grade in Englsh and Maths at GCSE. Without the catch-up 1-2-1 help, DD would just have been unable to READ the GCSE papers!

I'm not arguing that children with SN shouldn't get extra help quite the reverse in fact. I just don't think that the DoE should be telling headteachers and schools that they must spend X amount on this and Y on that.